Muscles building and training

We took the main team out on a nice run yesterday. Man, it was GOOD to get out and run the dogs! We went out and hooked the team up and I have to say...what a difference from the first few runs...or even the past few years even! It was great...we walked dogs up to the line and they just stood there, leaning into their harnesses, wagging their tails, ready to go. But, they were so calm and quiet! I was really happy to see it. Manny had to replace a couple of necklines, and all he had were poly necklines. We were both thinking that they'd get chewed through quickly...but, surprise, surprise...they didn't chew. Well, Sunshine tried chewing on his cable neckline...but left Booger's poly neckline alone. Yay! I ran up to get the dogs to go straight across our road, instead of turning to the regular trail. We wanted to go down to the ponds, then up to the Firebreak...going this way avoids Oh-My-God hill. Of course, Just and Dusk decided they didn't want to listen, so I grabbed their neckline and pulled them across the road. They got the idea fast as they saw the trail ahead of them and took off. Manny had a hard time holding them so I could jump on behind him on the atv. We went down the trail towards the ponds...the dogs were just flying! There are some very tight turns, a narrow trail with trees all over. Eeek! Ok, so that was girlish...but it was fast! Ha ha ha!

There's a good amount of overflow between the ponds, all frozen over of course, but it makes the trail a bit rough. Manny slowed the dogs on the ice...but that made them slip and slide a bit. Once we got through Times Square, Manny & I switched and I drove the team. They ran so well! We were doing a speed run, so I ran the throttle to give the dogs from having to grind. Booger was off and on...we think the kennel picked up a bug, as there had been loose stools earlier in the week. This run though, all looked fine with no diarrhea....except for Booger going on and off his tug, everyone looked good. After a bit, we took Just out of lead and put Chevy up front with Dusk. Chevy has such a beautiful, flying trot! I loved watching him in lead. NICE! We went up and did a loop on the Firebreak, then came back down to the ponds. This time, we ran the dogs across the overflow and they didn't slip and slide like they had. The dogs came into the yard at a lope...which is very cool! They are definitely doing well.

We have a few dogs I call "skinny butts" and well, you can guess why. Though we've split feedings up to twice a day, add rice to their meat at night, giving them a "soup" and dewormed them with Cestex to get any tapeworms that may be causing them to stay thin, they're still skinny. This means that they don't look malnourished or anything, but when I feel their hips, I don't feel the nice fat pad that I like them to have between their hip bones. However, I hadn't been able to see them during the day for the past few weeks. I go to work when it's dark and come home when it's dark. When I went out to help Manny harness and hook up for our run on Friday, I got a good look at the dogs. Holy crow! They look like little bodybuilders! No wonder they don't have any extra "fat"...it's all been turned to muscle. The hounds all have those bulging shoulder and thigh muscles...the huskies aren't too far behind, either! What lean, muscular bodies they have. Turns out that Manny has been doing a lot of hard pulling runs, which has trained the dogs to work hard on hills. However he hasn't done many speed runs, as he was trying to make sure the dogs were well muscled and conditioned to avoid injuries. So, now that the dogs are so well-muscled, we'll work on conditioning/speed next...especially once we can switch to sleds. I'll have to get some pictures to show the bulging muscles...it looks so cool! I just hope that it doesn't slow them down....but hey, look out for this team if we have tough trails like last year! Yikes! :o) Tee hee hee!

Keep on truckin'! =Da Rogues